Category:

Regional Time-Lines

“Each regional time-line identifies milestones in the building blocks process. In addition, there is an overall or over-arching provincial storyline that links the five regional stories. Provincial milestones provide the basic structure and backbone that carries through each of the stories within the story. The aspect or element that unifies the regional stories is the ‘convening for action’ program which is what inter-regional collaboration is about,” states Kim Stephens.

“Adoption of the regional strategies has resulted in much for municipal staffs to absorb and digest about doing business differently, while at the same time they are tasked with keeping the wheels of government rolling to meet ongoing commitments,” stated Kevin Lagan. “The Comox Valley-CAVI Regional Team convenes for action around this paradigm: Water is the finite resource; however, management of development is the control.”

“Within the Cowichan Valley Regional District, there are five local government jurisdictions; and the same group of developers and development consultants have projects in all or most of those jurisdictions. It therefore becomes essential that developers and their consultants hear a consistent message regarding rainwater management and green infrastructure expectations when doing business at the front counters in each of those jurisdictions,” stated Peter Nilsen.

“A growing population combined with known negative impacts created the need to tackle issues of groundwater depletion, stream degradation, surface water contamination and the changes climate change will bring. Land use planning and development standards cannot be effectively modified without a clear understanding of our water resources, where they are changing and why,” states Mike Donnelly.

“Moving to a watershed-focused program allows the Capital Regional District to support the core area municipalities with new strategies for environmental protection, including an increased focus on dealing with watershed stressors near the source rather than at the municipal infrastructure or receiving environment level. Additionally, the strategy supports municipal efforts in watersheds that cross municipal boundaries,” wrote Glenn Harris.

“Green infrastructure practices have moved from pilot project to neighbourhood and watershed scale approaches. I believe that, in some substantive way, our Green Infrastructure Partnership efforts a decade ago advanced the cause of sustainable development and moved the state of-the-art of green infrastructure to a more mainstream level,” stated Paul Ham, Past-Chair (2005-2008).